Launching error in mac

[sauro-salomoni]

Hi there.

First of all, thanks for the developers. I used to play Spellfire a lot some years ago, I'm excited to play it online!

But so far, I haven't been able to run it on my macbook (macOS 10.14.6 Mojave). Could you guys please help me with this?

** I have installed Tcl8.4.20 in the root folder, and confirmed the installed files in /Library/Tcl.framework and /usr/local/bin.

When I run "CrossFire Launcher for Mac.app", I can briefly see the splash screen, but then it disappears and nothing else...
I then ran the file "CrossFire.tcl" from Terminal in debug mode to check what's going on:
$ ./CrossFire.tcl -debug
Error in startup script: can't create procedure "tcl::clock::::tcl::clock::Initialize": unknown namespace
while executing
"_proc tcl::clock::::tcl::clock::Initialize {} {
dputs "tcl::clock::::tcl::clock::Initialize "

rename ::tcl::clock::Initialize {}

variable L..."
("eval" body line 1)
invoked from within

"eval "_proc $fullName {$argList} {$procBody}""
(procedure "proc" line 19)
invoked from within
"proc ::tcl::clock::Initialize {} {

rename ::tcl::clock::Initialize {}

variable LibDir

# Define the Greenwich time zone

proc InitTZ..."
(file "/Users/saurosalomoni/opt/anaconda3/lib/tcl8.6/clock.tcl" line 88)
invoked from within

"source -encoding utf-8 [file join $TclLibDir clock.tcl]"
(procedure "::tcl::clock::format" line 3)
invoked from within
"clock format [clock seconds] -format "%m/%d/%Y""
(in namespace eval "::Config" script line 57)
invoked from within
"namespace eval Config {

# Array to hold all the configuration options.
variable config
variable configW
variable configDef
variab..."
(file "/Users/saurosalomoni/Documents/Sauro/Spellfire/CrossFire-master/Scripts/Config.tcl" line 23)
invoked from within

"source [file join $CrossFire::homeDir "Scripts" $script]"
("foreach" body line 2)
invoked from within
"foreach script {
CommonV.tcl Common.tcl CommonUI.tcl Registry.tcl Config.tcl
Server.tcl MultiLang.tcl
} {
source [file join $CrossFire::ho..."
(file "./CrossFire.tcl" line 257)

Any ideas what could be going wrong?

Thanks in advance.
Kind regards,
Sauro Salomoni

[simondorfman]

Hi Sauro, I helped someone get CrossFire working on Mojave a while back but never sent a pull request to this repository. Please try the attached launcher and let me know if it works for you.

CrossFire-Launcher-for-Mac-Mojave.zip

[sauro-salomoni]

Hi Simon.
Thanks for sending this through. With this new launcher, I got the same response as with the original one: I see the launcher's menu bar on the top of the screen for a brief moment, but the app doesn't start.

I wonder if there's a way for me to check if I got Tcl (and any other dependencies) correctly installed? or maybe my version of XCode (11.2 - 11B52) is not compatible?

As a last resource, I wouldn't mind updating my macOS altogether, if that would make it more likely to run this app. :-)

Thanks for the support.
Sauro

[simondorfman]

Hmm I’m not sure. I think you don’t want to upgrade macOS. I think no one got CrossFire working on newer versions of macOS because they couldn’t get the old version of TCL installed. Yeah, maybe try reinstalling TCL.

[simondorfman]

Maybe this old link works: http://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.tcl.tk/pub/tcl/conferences/Software/ActiveState/ActiveTcl8.4.20.0/ActiveTcl8.4.20.0.297203-macosx10.5-i386-x86_64-threaded.dmg

[sauro-salomoni]

I downloaded the mac Tcl installer from the link, but during the installation I got the (not helpful) message "The installation failed. The installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance."

Alternatively, I might try to run CrossFire on a virtual machine, using VMware. Does it work on Windows 10? Do you have a link for an installer for Tcl 8.4.x? I couldn't find any.

[simondorfman]

I'm not having any luck finding a windows installer of Tcl 8.4.20 either. I did find this page that talks about compiling from source: https://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/downloadnow84.html

Seems like a lot of work, but if you go down that path, please document the steps so others can follow in your footsteps. :)

[simondorfman]

Oops, reading the readme, looks like 8.4.18 was the one to get. Looks like source is here, but requires compiling: https://sourceforge.net/projects/tcl/files/Tcl/8.4.18/

[sauro-salomoni]

I tried to compile Tcl on mac and on Windows. I could compile it, but I cannot make it run CrossFire... different errors related to duplicate objects, bash profile...

Let me ask you: Do you have a version of CrossFire running on your computer? (or do you know someone who does?) There might be something specific with the combination of "versions" (OS, C++ compiler, Tcl, terminal/bash, etc), so it would be good to know of one set of configurations that work, so I could try to reproduce it inside a virtual machine.

Also, do you have any plans to migrate CrossFire to a more recent version of Tcl, or maybe into Python? (I understand it might be a major job)

[simondorfman]

I have CrossFire working on an old iMac running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6
I believe I installed TCL 8.4.x a long while back using a link like this:
http://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.tcl.tk/pub/tcl/conferences/Software/ActiveState/ActiveTcl8.4.20.0/ActiveTcl8.4.20.0.297203-macosx10.5-i386-x86_64-threaded.dmg
...back when that link worked.

I opened the code of the AppleScript launcher. Maybe this will help you:

set unixPath to POSIX path of ((path to me as text) & "::") --get path to parent folder
set launchCrossFire to "/usr/local/bin/wish '" & unixPath & "CrossFire.tcl' > /dev/null 2>&1 &" -- create command to launch CrossFire
do shell script launchCrossFire -- run command

I was able to launch CrossFire using that AppleScript launcher, and also like this:

1. open Terminal
2. cd to the directory where CrossFire.tcl is located
3. run this command in Terminal: /usr/local/bin/wish CrossFire.tcl
   Or if you want to run it without being tied to the Terminal window, run this command: /usr/local/bin/wish CrossFire.tcl > /dev/null 2>&1 &

To find other people who have successfully installed CrossFire, I suggest posting to this Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2375681829/

Re: trying to migrate to a more recent version of Tcl, I know @zzambushzz started down that path at some point. Just found his fork here:
dadof5boys@f38393c

I don't think he got very far. I don't know anything about Tcl, but I guess the changes from 8.4 to 8.5 were significant. So it would probably be a lot of work to get it working.

I like the idea of trying to get it working with python. That's a language I'm actively learning so I could actually contribute. If you start work on that, I'd be happy to pitch in.

[simondorfman]

Hey, just looking at the forks of this repo, looks like @jahitchcock added a copy of the tcl installer for windows here:
jahitchcock@9043147

[simondorfman]

I tried that tcl installer for windows on Windows 10. Got an error about not having tcom. Installed tcom by downloading from here:
http://www.vex.net/~cthuang/tcom/tcom-3.9.zip

Then, followed the README and copied the lib files to tcl/lib like this:

But then I got another error when double-clicking CrossFire.tcl:

Giving up on that for now. If you make any progress, let me know.

[sauro-salomoni]

Thanks for the effort, Simon.
The terminal command was helpful -- I was trying to run CrossFire with 'tclsh', not with 'wish'. When I used 'wish', I got an error saying "dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/X11/lib/libXft.2.dylib". Searching around, someone mentioned solving this dependency by installing XQuartz (an open-source version of X Window System that runs on OS X). After installing XQuartz, I tried 'wish' again and got the same error as you did in your windows attempt:

$ /usr/local/bin/wish8.6 CrossFire.tcl 
Error in startup script: expected integer but got "bold"
    (processing "-font" option)
    invoked from within
"$w.buttons itemconfigure helpString  -font "[$w.buttons itemcget helpString -font] bold""
    (procedure "CrossFire::Create" line 116)
    invoked from within
"CrossFire::Create"
    (file "CrossFire.tcl" line 374)

I then searched for the file containing this line of code, and found it within the appropriately named "/Scripts/MainGUI.tcl". I then commented the command that generated the error (probably not essential, seems to configure the button help string), and tried 'wish' again, and it worked!! :-)

I can now run and open CrossFire!! I'm now getting familiar with the GUI, configuring cards, and stuff. One thing is funny though: When viewing cards / deck, I can see the card description, powers, series (AD&D, etc), but I cannot see the figure / illustration for that card (see snapshot). Is that normal? The illustration is one of the highlights of Spellfire, and I can see the figure files in the "Graphics" folder. Maybe I'm missing a configuration or something?

[simondorfman]

Cool! Glad to hear you got it running! I think there's a configuration somewhere to turn on the image preview. I wish that was on by default.

[sauro-salomoni]

An update:
I realized that CrossFire runs "on top of" XQuartz, as its X window manager. You can see that by the X icon on the window title. Also, when I quit CrossFire, it asks "Do you really want to quit X11".

I also found other parts of the code where the error with the font and "bold" happens. So, rather than just commenting the line of code, I can actually replace "bold" by a number (e.g. 10), which is used to set the font size. A font size of 10 is reasonable for the help string, but I'm still checking the others.

For reference, here's a list of all the scripts that had a similar command line, where "bold" should be replaced by a font size number:

• mainGUI.tcl: line 408
• PlayGUI.tcl: lines 765, 767
• PlayerGUI.tcl: lines 127, 188, 1163
• Chat.tcl: line 607

[sauro-salomoni]

I think the option you mentioned to show the card image is "Show Card Icons". This option is tested in PlayGUI.tcl:

           if {$Config::config(Online,showIcon) == "Yes"} {
                $tbw image create end -image small$testTypeID
                $tbw insert end " "
            }

However, even after enabling it I cannot see the card image. From the code above, maybe the image is only shown when online?... I'll investigate a bit further...